LTTP: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (The Movie)

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marrec

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My LTTP Thread on the Previous Movie:

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=485772

In case you don't click the above link, a quick explanation. I have zero experience with any Harry Potter media except for reading the first book ages ago. I haven't seen any of the movies or played the games. (I did watch Harry Potter Puppet Pals though, I'm not THAT crazy.)

So in an effort to redress this egregious lack of pop culture knowledge, my SO has determined that over the course of the next few weeks/months we will be watching all of the movies in order via Netflix. Last week I watched the first movie, this week I watched:

http://hauntedhouses.com/photos-movies/cover-harrypotter2.jpg

This movie starts with Harry not only noticeable older but also living in new digs. His room has a fucking window and his owl has not been killed by the evil family as I was assuming would happen. His owl is however pissed that it can't fly around and poop outside and stuff. Is this scene a subtle metaphor for how Harry feels trapped by these evil people and yearns to FLY FREE!?

No. It's not subtle at all considering he later quite literally flies to Hogwarts.

Before that though he has a not too terrible interaction with Evil Family in which he's told to not get shitty because they're going to have company. So undoubtedly he's going to get shitty and it takes the form of a dirty ass, robe wearing 'House Elf' named Dobby. You can see him up there on the cover of the movie. I can't think of a more annoying and off-putting way to start the movie then the following sequence.

Dobby explains to 'Mr. Potter' that he can't return to Hogwarts because his life is in danger. And there's a bunch of scenes of Dobby's faithful self-flagellation that are just uncomfortable to watch and go on for FAR too long. Then the elf drops a cake on someone's head and frames Harry for it.

In response to this, the family tries their best to keep Harry in the house. This makes no fucking sense.

Proving that you can't keep a good wizard down, Harry is rescued by Ron and his brothers in a flying car and we're whisked away to the Weasley's house and a bunch of very uninteresting stuff happens. We're introduced to who I can only assume are people that will serve no purpose to the story once they eventually get to the story.

Spoiler alert: I'm only kinda wrong.

They go back to the somehow boring wizard shopping mall and meet two new characters!

Gilderoy Lockhart is an author and purposefully annoying. I can only assume the casting director wanted Mike Myers in this role but had to settle for...

NPSuJ.jpg


Wait, fucking Kenneth Branagh?! You cast Branagh and then waste him on this character?

Hamlet's gotta get paid I guess.

The other guy we meet is Lucius Malfoy who is Draco's pops. As soon as we see Lucius we start to understand why Draco is such a little shithead. He constantly has to live in the shadow of his father's amazing hair. This meeting is pretty much the same scene that was used in the last movie when we met Draco. Mr. Malfoy talks to Harry respectfully, Harry is a shit, and Lucius bullies the group and nobody stops him because they are used to living under the oligarchical thumb of more powerful wizards. Well, the Senior Weasley stops him by smelling like normal people or something.

Then they fly to Hogwarts and the movie is less interesting.

The second act takes place in almost the exact same fashion as last movie but is punctuated by Harry stupidly stumbling onto crime scenes and then just standing around until more people show up and accuse him of said crimes. Also there is a long and unecessary sequence in which the Scooby Gang drinks a potion that allows them to turn into Slytherin members so that they can spy on Draco. The actual spying scene is shorter than the potion drinking/transformation scene... we go through this long and involved process with the main three protagonists just to have Draco say 4 lines of dialog?

Speaking of Draco's dialog, institutional racism is apparently completely accepted in the wizarding world and any interaction with 'muggles' is considered abnormal. Draco slings around racial slurs and nobody even blinks. I think this is the part in the story that's supposed to be some kind of social commentary on acceptance, but instead just comes across as endorsing bigotry and ignorance.

There is something completely wrong with the pacing of this movie.

The scoobies figure out the mystery after Hermione gets stoned and Ron sister is kidnapped by a snake. Somewhere in all that Hagrid is sent to wizard prison and Dumbledore is driven out of the school once again for plot related purposes. Oh no the kids are on their own at the most pivotal moment once again!

They enlist Hamlet and go down into the lair of the big bad. Hamlet turns coat and zaps his memory away, Ron has to dig them all out and Harry goes on alone, again, to the evil that lies beyond. This time the evil takes place in a big snake and the memory of Voldemort before he became Voldemort.

There's a book, it's a thing.

Harry would have been completely fucked if not for Dumbledore's self-immolating bird flying in to save him FOR NO FUCKING REASON.

Instead of Harry being a Wizard, he uses a rather unremarkable sword to stab the big snake in the head. WHAT THE FUCK AM I WATCHING? Harry's big fat evil uncle could have taken care of this shit with a long kitchen knife!

Then Harry stabs Voldemort's diary, the memory burns up (a common theme so far) and Ron's sister wakes up and loves Harry even more.

We're treated to Dumbledore's homecoming with a grand parade!

Just kidding, he's just back and nobody says shit about him being deposed.

He talks to Harry about how the sword is super special, but that just leaves me wondering why it didn't do anything remarkable in the boss battle. Lucius interrupts them to be menacing by standing in the only shadow left in the room and reveal that he's a slave-master. Dumbledore gives zero shits about slavery going on and Harry frees the slave by giving him a sock.

It's never explained why Dobby doesn't want Mr. Potter to die.

...

This movie was much worse than the first and wouldn't have been enjoyable if not for the first act and Alan Rickman.
 
Solo said:
Don't fret, the first (also last and only) great film of the franchise is next.
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yeah, the jump in quality is completely redicolous (-_-)

prisoner of azkaban is great, and while the later movies are somewhat good too, 3 is definitely the best.
 
dangerbyrnes said:
yeah, the jump in quality is completely redicolous (-_-)

prisoner of azkaban is great, and while the later movies are somewhat good too, 3 is definitely the best.
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Well I'm needing a good movie after this one.

The first movie at least had a predictable sense of pacing and nothing felt too rushed.

This movie was a jumbled mess. It did have some entertaining scenes, but it was for the most part very bad.
 
The second book and movie are just a drag. It's not that interesting, and that no one was able to figure out what was in the Chamber was really a stretch if disbelief, especially not Dumbledore, who knew it wasn't a giant spider.

marrec said:
Wait, fucking Kenneth Branagh?! You cast Branagh and then waste him on this character?

Hamlet's gotta get paid I guess.
Click to expand...

I thought Branagh was perfect as Lockheart. If there's one thing these movies do not fault on, it's really good casting.



The other guy we meet is Lucius Malfoy who is Draco's pops. As soon as we see Lucius we start to understand why Draco is such a little shithead. He constantly has to live in the shadow of his father's amazing hair. This meeting is pretty much the same scene that was used in the last movie when we met Draco. Mr. Malfoy talks to Harry respectfully, Harry is a shit, and Lucius bullies the group and nobody stops him because they are used to living under the oligarchical thumb of more powerful wizards. Well, the Senior Weasley stops him by smelling like normal people or something.
Click to expand...

Jason Issacs said at the end of filming that he'd miss his fabulous hair...


Speaking of Draco's dialog, institutional racism is apparently completely accepted in the wizarding world and any interaction with 'muggles' is considered abnormal. Draco slings around racial slurs and nobody even blinks. I think this is the part in the story that's supposed to be some kind of social commentary on acceptance, but instead just comes across as endorsing bigotry and ignorance.
Click to expand...

Like I said in the last thread, they might as well tell the kids that 35% of them are going to Nazi house, and the rest of the school will hate them. What gets me, is that you learn that some of the Slytherin Kids are also halfbloods, which makes me wonder how their lives are. It's like sending the Jewish kid to the above mentioned Nazi house.


He talks to Harry about how the sword is super special, but that just leaves me wondering why it didn't do anything remarkable in the boss battle. Lucius interrupts them to be menacing by standing in the only shadow left in the room and reveal that he's a slave-master. Dumbledore gives zero shits about slavery going on and Harry frees the slave by giving him a sock.

It's never explained why Dobby doesn't want Mr. Potter to die.
Click to expand...

House Elves become a bigger side story in the books, with Hermione eventually starting a group to free them. In the books, Dumbledore does show sympathy for them. The books mention that while not everyone is as big a dick as the Malforys, a lot of them are still heavily prejudiced, and look down on magical creatures like House Elves, Centaurs, and Goblins. As for Dobby, Dobby's just a nice guy. There are other House Elves who are little assholes like their master.
 
One of the things I didn't get about this movie was
whenever someone got attacked by the basilisk, those tiny spiders were present. Why were they there?

I only read the books from Order of the Phoenix upwards, so I assumed it's something I'd have to read the book to understand.
 
The second one if the worst, third is fantastic, and the fourth is nearly as bad as the second. Thankfully they get better.
 
King Mystery said:
One of the things I didn't get about this movie was
whenever someone got attacked by the basilisk, those tiny spiders were present. Why were they there?

I only read the books from Order of the Phoenix upwards, so I assumed it's something I'd have to read the book to understand.
Click to expand...

Spiders are afraid of the Basalisk, they were abandoning school.
 
I hated how obviously everything solved itself in the movie. Like the phoenix just flying into the chamber and saving Harry. Nauseatingly bad - definitely my least favorite from the film series.

I actually stopped reading Chamber of Secrets because I felt it was too boring. That book is probably the sole reason I haven't read more Potter books since the first.
 
An awful movie but a blessing in disguise, as it's dreadful reception led to massive changes that led to the amazing PoA. Reception to the first film was so bad that CoS made $50m less domestically, the shittiness of CoS in turn led to PoA making even less. Thankfully audiences loved that third film and GoF got a big boost.

As always there is some good casting, but Chris Columbus was just not equipped to do justice to the world of Harry Potter. CoS is boring and totally lacking in personality.
 
King Mystery said:
One of the things I didn't get about this movie was
whenever someone got attacked by the basilisk, those tiny spiders were present. Why were they there?

I only read the books from Order of the Phoenix upwards, so I assumed it's something I'd have to read the book to understand.
Click to expand...

the spiders were running away from the basilisk, they explained that the spiders worst enemy is the basilisk or something. also, they originally thought the giant spider was the chamber of secrets creature because there were always spiders at the "crime scene".

marrec said:
Well I'm needing a good movie after this one.

The first movie at least had a predictable sense of pacing and nothing felt too rushed.

This movie was a jumbled mess. It did have some entertaining scenes, but it was for the most part very bad.
Click to expand...

i think the quality of the movies goes something like this

OK->Bad->Best->Bad->OK->OK->Boring->Good...ish.
 
Another problem was that unlike the first movie, which was a perfect book adaptation, Columbus tried to change things in this film, and failed miserably.

I still love the first film for it's charm that later films lacked, but the second film was just a mess.

dangerbyrnes said:
the spiders were running away from the basilisk, they explained that the spiders worst enemy is the basilisk or something. also, they originally thought the giant spider was the chamber of secrets creature because there were always spiders at the "crime scene".
Click to expand...

That was never a plot point in the book or movie. They thought it was a giant spider because Tom Riddle caught Hagrid with it. Tom Riddle was a model student that everyone, including all the teachers (apart from Dumbledore) liked, and Hagrid was a screw-up with a history of having a fascination with dangerous creatures.
 
DrForester said:
Another problem was that unlike the first movie, which was a perfect book adaptation, Columbus tried to change things in this film, and failed miserably.

I still love the first film for it's charm that later films lacked, but the second film was just a mess.
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Change is good when it comes to book--->film adaptations, they are totally different mediums. The best Potter films are the ones that try to be good films first and loyal re-enactments second.
 
Ushojax said:
Change is good when it comes to book--->film adaptations, they are totally different mediums. The best Potter films are the ones that try to be good films first and loyal re-enactments second.
Click to expand...

Change can be good (5th movie was a good example). But there's nothing wrong with direct adaptations when they can work. The first movie proved that. It had the charm that was lost in later films. Everything looked like it should.
 
DrForester said:
The second book and movie are just a drag. It's not that interesting, and that no one was able to figure out what was in the Chamber was really a stretch if disbelief, especially not Dumbledore, who knew it wasn't a giant spider.

I thought Branagh was perfect as Lockheart. If there's one thing these movies do not fault on, it's really good casting.
Click to expand...

Branagh is great in almost everything, it just seems a waste to cast such a fantastic actor is such a throw away role. He add almost nothing to the story.

Like I said in the last thread, they might as well tell the kids that 35% of them are going to Nazi house, and the rest of the school will hate them. What gets me, is that you learn that some of the Slytherin Kids are also halfbloods, which makes me wonder how their lives are. It's like sending the Jewish kid to the above mentioned Nazi house.
Click to expand...

It's baffling so far why this kind of racism is totally accepted by the school and the world at large. I'm sure it's more delicately handled in the books, but in the movies it's treated like everyone is perfectly okay with a lot of kids at the school being complete shits.

House Elves become a bigger side story in the books, with Hermione eventually starting a group to free them. In the books, Dumbledore does show sympathy for them. The books mention that while not everyone is as big a dick as the Malforys, a lot of them are still heavily prejudiced, and look down on magical creatures like House Elves, Centaurs, and Goblins. As for Dobby, Dobby's just a nice guy. There are other House Elves who are little assholes like their master.
Click to expand...

Why would a bunch of wizards, who are inherently magic, look down on magical creatures? Racism doesn't make sense to me even in fictional worlds.

:(

I'm glad someone cares about the slaves. I'm getting the feeling that some of the more heavy themes handled in the book are completely abandoned for these first few movies.
 
I generally think they get better as they go along. Prisoner of Azkaban is a solid movie, but it was at that point my favorite book in the series, so I was expecting better. Which is unfair, I'll admit.

marrec said:
Why would a bunch of wizards, who are inherently magic, look down on magical creatures? Racism doesn't make sense to me even in fictional worlds.

:(

I'm glad someone cares about the slaves. I'm getting the feeling that some of the more heavy themes handled in the book are completely abandoned for these first few movies.
Click to expand...
The house elf plots are easily my least favorite parts of the books. I'm glad they were mostly avoided in the movies.
 
Spwn said:
I hated how obviously everything solved itself in the movie. Like the phoenix just flying into the chamber and saving Harry.
Click to expand...


I think I read an article about that recently, about how Rowling uses Dues ex machina to solve a lot of the problems in her book.

Yeah. Wiki makes reference to it:

Writer Christopher Hitchens observed that author J.K. Rowling often employs deus ex machina in the Harry Potter series. Hitchens argues that the tactic "has a deplorable effect on both the plot and the dialogue" in that it creates "The need for Rowling to play catch-up with her many convolutions"
Click to expand...


edit: Wait a minute. Unless that scene never happened in the book. I wouldn't know. LOL.
 
DrForester said:
Change can be good (5th movie was a good example). But there's nothing wrong with direct adaptations when they can work. The first movie proved that. It had the charm that was lost in later films. Everything looked like it should.
Click to expand...

It didn't work that well as CoS made much less money than the first film. If people liked it so much they would have turned up for the second one.
 
marrec said:
Branagh is great in almost everything, it just seems a waste to cast such a fantastic actor is such a throw away role. He add almost nothing to the story.
Click to expand...

The Defense against the Dark Arts teacher is played by several really talented actors. It's an important role in the books, and films (sometime more than others).
 
King Mystery said:
I think I read an article about that recently, about how Rowling uses Dues ex machina to solve a lot of the problems in her book.

Yeah. Wiki makes reference to it:

edit: Wait a minute. Unless that scene never happened in the book. I wouldn't know. LOL.
Click to expand...

I type the phrase 'Deus ex pheonixia' but decided not to use it.

Darklord said:
I loved the atmosphere. It was just a light, fun, fantasy. It wasn't amazing but it's alright.
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The individual scenes are light and (sometimes)fun and full of fantasy, but the exposition was stunted and none of the scenes really fit together into a coherent tale.
 
Ushojax said:
It didn't work that well as CoS made much less money than the first film. If people liked it so much they would have turned up for the second one.
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First movie had more hype going into it. It was the first film an an incredibly popular book series. The first movie was the highest grossing of all the films, until the final film came along.
 
ascii42 said:
It happens more or less the same in the book.
Click to expand...

I was told by my SO that in the book Harry actively calls out for Dumbledore to help him as he told him to do while they were all standing in Hagrids shack.

So in the movie the bird just flies in and wrecks shit for no reason, even though they filmed Dumbledore telling Harry to ask for help.

What a stupid direction choice.
 
DrForester said:
The first movie was the highest grossing of all the films, until the final film came along.
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That shows the damage it did. They got that first movie wrong and it damaged the whole franchise. The hype shouldn't have died down until well past the 6th movie, as new books were still being released all those years. Philosopher's Stone turned off a good chunk of the audience and they never came back.
 
If I remember correctly, the sword is there because of Harry being a true Gryffindor. And the basilist is a symbol from Slytherin, so I thik it can only be killed by Gryffindor's sword. Oh, and the diary thing? It is mentioned again for bigger plot purposes, at least on the books.

And yes, Prisoner of Azkaban is maybe my favorite one. The last ones are good too.
 
Ushojax said:
That shows the damage it did. They got that first movie wrong and it damaged the whole franchise. The hype shouldn't have died down until well past the 6th movie, as new books were still being released all those years. Philosopher's Stone turned off a good chunk of the audience and they never came back.
Click to expand...

I don't think that's fair. All the movies got pretty good reviews. None of them were panned.
 
DrForester said:
I don't think that's fair. All the movies got pretty good reviews. None of them were panned.
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They don't need to be panned. Mediocrity is all it takes. PS and COS have 64 and 63 on Metacritic, compared to POA and GOF on 82 and 81 respectively. There is a reason WB threw out most of the crew responsible for the first two. Good first films, like X-Men or Pirates, lead to bigger takings for their sequels. Mediocre films result in lower takings. That's what PS and COS did.
 
Second worst movie of the franchise, really. I hated it even back then. It was just a drag, very bloated and uninteresting. Thankfully, with later books they started clinging to source material less, for better (PoA) or worse (GoF, oh my God, GoF).
 
marrec said:
I was told by my SO that in the book Harry actively calls out for Dumbledore to help him as he told him to do while they were all standing in Hagrids shack.

So in the movie the bird just flies in and wrecks shit for no reason, even though they filmed Dumbledore telling Harry to ask for help.

What a stupid direction choice.
Click to expand...

I haven't seen the movie in years, but doesn't Harry say something to Tom that demonstrates his loyalty to Dumbledore, and that's why the bird shows up?
 
ascii42 said:
I haven't seen the movie in years, but doesn't Harry say something to Tom that demonstrates his loyalty to Dumbledore, and that's why the bird shows up?
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Yes, and him and Dumbledore talk about it later, but it would have made more sense and helped develop Harry's character if they'd have stuck to the book for that part. Besides, Harry's loyalty is expressed by him saying:

'Imma let you finish, but Dumbledore is the best Headmaster of all time. OF ALL TIME!'

Harry shows all this loyalty to Dumbledore but NEVER talks to him about ANYTHING until it's all over and the most powerful wizard in the world can do nothing to help.
 
marrec said:
Yes, and him and Dumbledore talk about it later, but it would have made more sense and helped develop Harry's character if they'd have stuck to the book for that part. Besides, Harry's loyalty is expressed by him saying:

'Imma let you finish, but Dumbledore is the best Headmaster of all time. OF ALL TIME!'

Harry shows all this loyalty to Dumbledore but NEVER talks to him about ANYTHING until it's all over and the most powerful wizard in the world can do nothing to help.
Click to expand...


Hahahaha, yea. Well it makes more sense if you've read the books, Harry isn't great at trusting and opening up to people. That's because of his abusive upbringing.
 
Featheredkitten said:
Hahahaha, yea. Well it makes more sense if you've read the books, Harry isn't great at trusting and opening up to people. That's because of his abusive upbringing.
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Which Dumbledore forced him into.

It's all coming together now!

Squire Felix said:
so will we have 5 or 6 more threads?

Chamber wasn't bad, it was hit and miss how it was visualized.
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Yep, decided to make a thread for each movie, annoying as that sounds. This is a huge part of geek culture that I completely missed out on, so I want to play catch up as fast and as much as possible. Figured LTTP threads were the best way to have discussions about them.
 
I kind of want to watch all the Harry Potter movies in a sequence. Something about watching a 7/8 part series of movies is just attractive to me. Then again, I really don't like what they did with the later movies.
 
marrec said:
Which Dumbledore forced him into.

It's all coming together now!



Yep, decided to make a thread for each movie, annoying as that sounds. This is a huge part of geek culture that I completely missed out on, so I want to play catch up as fast and as much as possible. Figured LTTP threads were the best way to have discussions about them.
Click to expand...

please dont refer to geek culture as anything
 
Riposte said:
I kind of want to watch all the Harry Potter movies in a sequence. Something about watching a 7/8 part series of movies is just attractive to me. Then again, I really don't like what they did with the later movies.
Click to expand...

Yeah, at some point I plan on watching one a night for a week, with both parts of Deathly Hallows on Sunday or something. I think I'll buy a complete set of the Ultimate Editions, or something. At this point, it would be more for the special features.
 
As others have said, I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions in the next thread. Between two and three, it becomes a different and much better series (in the books and movies). I'm also looking forward to seeing how you feel about the rest of the movies too. I've always though they'd be hard to follow for a non-book reader, I guess we'll find out.
 
marrec said:
Er... pop culture?

Geeks have a culture that Harry Potter is a big part of, why don't you like the term?
Click to expand...

there was a thread a while back that explained it all.

but the next movie you are in for a real treat. its one of, if not, the best.
 
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